MSC Poesia Cruise Review

A 7-night roundtrip Eastern Mediterranean cruise from
Venice.

ABOVE: MSC Poesia cruises up the
Giudecca Canal from the
Venice Cruise
Terminal on Day 1 of a week-long
cruise to Istanbul. INSET BELOW: The MSC logo on Poesia's bow, and a view
of Venice from the Pascoli Deck.

By Durant Imboden

MSC
Crociere, or MSC Cruises, is unique among the large mainstream cruise
lines that operate in Europe: It's privately owned by its founder, Gianluigi
Aponte, who heads the world's second-largest container carrier, Mediterranean
Shipping Company ("MSC") with more than 300 cargo vessels. MSC Cruises has a
fleet of 11
ships, all built since 1990, and it caters to a multinational audience (mostly
European) with five official languages on every cruise.

Unlike
many of its competitors, MSC offers a European experience not just on shore, but
also on board its ships--which is why we were intrigued by the chance to sample
an MSC Poesia roundtrip cruise from Venice to Istanbul in October, 2009.
(Venice is one of our favorite cities, and it's the focus of
Venice for Visitors at Europeforvisitors.com.)

In this cruise review, we'll tell you
about MSC Poesia, its 7-day Eastern Mediterranean itinerary, and what it
was like to cruise with more than 3,000 passengers from nearly 20 countries.